Still Life

What happens when a 31-year-old grad student from Massachusetts finds herself smitten with a 19-year-old Italian? While in Rome, as the saying goes, and that is indeed where Jessie is ...

“I wonder why he left, Liza —” Liza stared out the smoky window of Antoinette’s. It was her companion’s favorite haunt, where the relationship with Sam had begun, where Jessie held him gently through the sting of his divorce and the ensuing days of panic when he thought he’d lose his little girl.

“He didn’t leave, Jessie. Look around you. All the things he loved are still here — frozen, capsuled. The moments are still here. All you need to do is reach for them. He’s left you all of this — ”

She extended her black lacy arms as delicately as a ballerina’s. And the gesture, though well intended, triggered a flurry of emotion Jessie had carefully packaged — in her heart, beneath the cool guise of dark, European artsy attire, clothes that really didn’t suit a 31-year-old grad student from Massachusetts.

“He’s left me — period. Gone back to San Francisco to his ex-wife. They’ll probably remarry — shit! It was a joke, that’s what it was. And I was the great interlude, a momentary lapse in his otherwise DULL LIFE.”

She downed her espresso. Liza exhaled and laughed throatily.

“He sure did a number on you! Where’s that sweet teacher-to-be I met at the museum a year ago? Jessie, don’t lose your heart. Don’t coat yourself in bitterness and give in to the scarring process. I’ve seen it happen to too many women. I don’t want it to happen to you.”

The room was bustling with pseudo-writers in outrageous outfits while the truly outrageous writers clustered in the back corner behind a thick curtain of smoke. “I don’t want it to happen either. I want to stay soft. I want all those things I ever wanted before, only this time ...”

“This time?”

“I want the fantasy to work. I want the castle and the white knight and the fat howling baby in the bassinet! And I want a beagle named Spanky loping across the lawn.”

“And I want that for you,” Liza replied, smoothing Jessie’s cold hand with hers.

“I just can’t figure out why he said he loved me, why he said we were going to get married and how great our kids would look. It was like some fantastical movie starring Grace Kelly and Mel Gibson — “

“Ha! Like they were in the same era! Why don’t you use that spirit and imagination and go out with me tonight and find a couple of real men?”

“You mean Italianos?” Jessie’s face turned into a snarling dog’s. “I want to go pinch-less tonight and I know that wherever we go, even if I wear something long, baggy or drab, we’ll still have to endure all this feely-touchy crap.”

“Attitude! This is Rome! Place of love and romance and magic. Your attitude belongs in Massachusetts at a Michael Dukakis concession speech. Lighten up.” Jessie twirled a brown curl and sprung its ringlet like a slinky. A little girl look fell upon her face as she told her friend, “Let’s do it.” ...

The club at midnight pulsated. The stream of dancers in their black jeans and seductive smiles reminded Jessie that she no longer shared this. Most of the kids were merely that.

“Hey you! Stick in the mud! Come out and dance!” Liza barked from the floor. Her partner, an Italian boy with a free-falling tongue and a penchant for dipping Liza beyond her limits, motioned the same.

“Naaa,” Jessie told them.

But her friend remained insistent. Then the Italian boy nodded to the row of tall, white-shirted Mediterranean gods along the club’s rear wall. A beefier type approached Jessie.

“Care to dance?” he asked in broken English. “Ummm, I don’t know.” The ground suddenly drew her — its white flecks neon in the glow of light, and spinning slightly after her third cognac.

The man held his palms outstretched.

“Oh Jeez, Ok, but just one. I have to leave for America tomorrow night. I –” But he’d grabbed her then, and on the floor her reservations escaped through the cracks in the windows.

“You’re a good dancer!” Jessie shrieked above the music.

“You too!” the Italian replied.

“What’s your NAME?!”

“LIBORIO!”

Jessie continued to dance, slowing slightly to adjust her silver belt, which kept shifting its buckle to the center. A sudden flash reminded her that in six weeks she’d begin student teaching and that Sam would resume regular lectures at Columbia. Her dream of the two of them dashing off to work, lovemaking to Bartok on Sunday mornings and braiding their daughters’ hair faded into the reality of the moment. Liborio seemed aptly named. He suddenly thrust his pelvis into the amber light, forward, causing Jessie to hop back a little. “Liborio! Liborio! Are you —”

But he couldn’t hear her. He was just smiling and rocking, shaking his fists, thrusting his crotch into the light. “I’m THIRSTY!” Jessie shouted, motioning to the bar, then dropping her tongue like a dog’s.

“Si!” he shouted, then grabbed her waist and led her to the bar. “I’m very thirsty too,” he whispered, and to her surprise, nibbled behind her left gold hoop earring.

Jessie stared at him. Where was Sam now? Could he, perhaps, not be back in the states yet and in fact be sitting on the other side of the bar watching her with this man? “Oh Liborio – I – stop it.”

He pulled away, but teased. “If I buy you a drink ...”

“No. And I can buy my own drink, thank you.” But it was loud, loud enough for Liborio to pretend he hadn’t heard a thing so ordered a round of red wine and, when it arrived, held both glasses then nodded toward the back door.

Jessie adjusted her belt again. Where was he taking her?

On the way out they passed Liza and her friend who, by this time, knew each other well enough to French kiss deeply on the stairs. Amongst the 20-year-olds in mini-skirts, Liza looked like the horny aunt, but what the hell, Jessie thought: “it’s too dark for her to see what’s happening anyway.

“I like your skin,” the Italian whispered in Jessie’s ear as she shoved the door open. Revealing a full, ripe moon set against a sea of crystalline stars and a momentary streaming comet which seemed to explode behind Sam’s old apartment house, Jessie relaxed.

“This is a beautiful place. I will really miss it.”

“You are leaving?” Liborio asked, with the sadness of a puppy when it leaves the litter.

“Yes, I have to start school and then my teaching in six weeks. I’m really looking forward to it.”

He kissed her hand. Outside on the fire escape, Jessie smelled rolls baking in a neighboring café. She saw the pastel buildings like silent castles in the shadow of club light. She looked up at her partner and asked, “What is it you like about Italy?”

“Like?” he chuckled, then considered a moment and reached for a strong cigarette. He cocked an eye toward her.

“I like meeting beautiful women — women like you. I like falling in love.”

“Oh, you Italians. Hopeless romantics. Why didn’t I have the good sense to fall for someone like you? I – well, I’ll bet you’re a good kid, aren’t you? What kind of work do you do?”

“I am studying to be a designer. I go to the art college.”

“Wow. But how do you support yourself doing that? Are you on scholarship?”

“My father owns the school.” He bowed his head, laughing a little. The admission embarrassed him.

“Wow! That’s terrific. I wish my father owned my school! Then I could have given up part-time word processing four years ago.”

Jessie played with the beads around her neck. She’d bought them in Florence the week before, before Sam left, before the terrible outburst of temper and the swell of discomfort. Now, here she stood with the young Liborio — an Italian god, his forehead sweatsoaked from the dance floor and his bronze hand reaching gently to clasp hers.

“Why do you Americans think about everything so much?” he asked. “It seems so silly.”

“Why? Ha! You got me. But the analyzing thing probably began with Freud and now everyone’s in analysis and when they’re not, they still can’t help analyzing the entire planet.” She looked up at him; her grin widened.

“You have beautiful teeth,” he whispered, and pulled her to him. The wind coursed gently through their sleeves. Out on the balcony with the creamy yellow moon poised high above them, the world remained a fairytale. He kissed her. His lips were fatter than Sam’s, his tongue quicker, hungrier. “I want you,” he said. She hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

She considered the moon. She considered Sam standing before a blackboard, his pants dusty from chalk and some starry-eyed freshman gazing on, telling him after class that no one taught philosophy as brilliantly as he. And later, they’d meet in the hall, unexpectedly, and laugh. A week would go by. More aborted glances, embarrassed giggles under the breath. And finally, after a tutorial in his office, he’d lock the door and pull her to the floor ...

“Where are you? Jessie?”“Huh?”Liborio returned to the balcony rail, which he leaned against to sigh, “Your mind is in America, right?”

“Right.”

He lit another cigarette, then handed it to Jessie for a drag. Its menthol gave her a buzz. “Right,” she said and exhaled. “My mind is with a man who broke my heart and killed my spirit.”

“Aaah, but the spirit cannot die! You must find it again, Jessie!” “Why?” “Because you are nothing without it, nothing but shell, like a shell abandoned at the beach and then in time broken, ravaged by the wind and the salt air — ”

“That’s how I feel.”

She hugged herself then allowed a tear. Liborio wanted to comfort her so offered his arm. “Let’s take a walk; come on.”

“But what about Liza? And your friend?”

“They won’t miss us. They are probably making out in the back still.”

“And why not?”

“Why?”

There was no time to answer. They strolled down the piazza del terre, through the village, past the discos and cafes and shops. When they reached the end of a road, Liborio suggested, “Let’s take a taxi. I want to show you something.”

"OK,” Jessie conceded, “might as well enjoy myself. It is my last night in Rome.”

A little further and a cab appeared. The cigar-smoking cabby gathered directions from Liborio and soon, the pair were en route to the Diazza Design School of Rome, some 20 minutes from the disco. The streets were clearing; it was about 1:00 a.m., so they made excellent time. Liborio paid the driver — “Keep the change” — and escorted Jessie to the front entrance of the school. A soft peach building by night — at least in the lamp glow of streetlight — the building seemed vaguely impressive, and, Jessie thought, reminiscent of Santa Fe. Liborio had several keys and pulled one out for the front doorway.

“Come in,” he encouraged, flipping on the light. Dusty and paint-scented, Jessie felt high from the fumes before they could even make it up the winding staircase.

She giggled, “Shouldn’t we have brought a bottle of wine or something?”

“Or something?”

His hot breath ran down her neck, then she reached for his button and undid his white shirt. She ran her hand through his dark chest hair, smoothing his nipples ever so lightly.“Ummm,” he whispered, kissing her earlobe again.

Jessie smiled for the first time that night. She looked up and saw a skylight, where the moon broke in and the stars offered their serenade. In a quiet artists’ school, Jessie imagined teachers were unwelcome — at least physics teachers like herself. Too left brain, too practical.

“Come with me,” Liborio suddenly insisted, and led her up another flight of stairs, to the third story. Where they peered into an abandoned warehouse-looking room, she saw an expanse of paintings — in various stages of completion. With bright rich strokes, the artist had offered his or her view of the Italian landscape, and then, tucked smally against the exit doorway stood the star portrait: a young woman, with somber face and dark, penetrating eyes. You could see sadness on her lips, in the pout, in the face, which seemed to reflect a life misspent and adulthood threatening to continue more of the same.

“Who did these?” Jessie asked. Liborio drew back with a chuckle. “No! Oh, Liborio — I am so impressed ... When I met you this evening I had no idea ...” Jessie walked toward the portrait of the woman. She considered a moment, took her finger to touch the woman’s shoulder. “She looks — “

“Like you?”

“Yes.”

“I know.” Liborio withdrew from the moment and walked to the back of the room, where his father had lent him an office space the size of a large bedroom. He unlocked the door and flipped on the light. Jessie remained transfixed at the portrait. ‘Is it me?’ she thought. And if so, how does he know me? Where has he seen me? “Jessieee — “ he called. “Come in here, my sweet.”

Giggling, Jessie ran to him, tripping a bit over an artist’s brush. The office was extremely messy, like a little boy’s room. There were toys: a Gumby and a Poky, several small racing cars, a teddy bear with big red buttons on his face that looked homemade.

“Nice place you have here, Liborio — ”

“My father thought I needed an office.”

“Why would a student get his own office?”

“He would if he had a partial interest in the school and student taught the Advanced Painting workshop.” “I’m impressed. How old are you?”

“Old enough for you.”

“How old? 21? 22?”

Liborio considered the ground and lit a cigarette. He cracked a dimple. __________

Flying back to Boston the next day, Jessie sat beside a middle-aged man in an Armani suit who read the Wall Street Journal. He could have been Sam before he gave up banking, or any of Sam’s friends. She was happy they’d given her a window seat. She knew Liza was missing her, that she had another month alone in the Roman countryside and no real friends to speak of. Liza didn’t have a great career or a husband to rush home to — just a legal secretarial job and a cat that cried whenever the buses drove loudly past.

“Excuse me, do you have the time?” Jessie asked the stranger beside her. She thought about the time change and the jet lag sure to come. The stewardess walked by with cinnamon rolls and coffee.

“M’am, would you like anything?”

“Umm ... coffee I guess. With cream.”

The stewardess poured a packet of powdered creamer into a small white plastic mug, then stirred. She reached across the businessman, her breasts at his eye level just as she handed the coffee to Jessie.

“Thanks. May I have some nuts?”

“We don’t have nuts. Just rolls.”

“Oh.”

No nuts on a trans-Atlantic flight? Is that allowed? As a cumulus cloud feathered the wing, Jessie looked out at a sea of bright blue sky and, suddenly, Liborio’s face seemed to float by. All tan and handsome and bright. Like a baby, or the first rose of Spring. “I will miss you,” he had said, after they’d made love in his office amidst a scattering of designs and paint brushes. She had kicked off the phone receiver as he moved inside her, and they’d both roared as if it were the funniest thing in the world.

“Where are you from?” the businessman asked.

“Huh? Oh, I’m from Framingham. But I got to school at Boston U. That is, I’ll begin student teaching this year.”

“Great. What are you teaching?”

“Physics. Beginning.”

“A scientist. Nice to meet a woman in the Sciences. Don’t see much of that.”

“My grandmother was a physicist.”

Then, as another cloud grazed the window, she could no longer hear the man beside her. Instead she remembered something she’d seen in Liborio’s studio. It was the portrait of the woman. The woman without the sadness.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. COPYRIGHT LAURIE WIEGLER

Photo: Wikimedia Commons Images